Page 17 - Журнал Sozvezdye Review - «СОЗВЕЗДИЕ» #38

Atomflot-operated ships). Instead, there exist a num- in the transport hubs. And still, they are what might
ber of sea terminals with specialized and multi-cargo turn out to be the most vulnerable elements of the Arc-
berths, whose capacity is, however, sufficient to meet tic infrastructure.
the delivery and export needs of only one owner com- With many private terminals and modes of trans-
pany. These terminals have no physical connection with portation, a transport hub is also the most complex part
each other and operate as isolated facilities. The reason of infrastructure. Its complexity is likely to lead to bot-
for this lies in economic expediency: It would be in- tlenecks during the peak periods of Arctic development.
expedient for neighboring terminals, even within one Therefore, the starting point for any investment proj-
area, to share an infrastructure with overland connec- ect in the Russian Arctic lies in concentrating the co-
tions. As a result, what we have in the Arctic Zone is a ordination efforts in the transport hubs: Arkhangelsk,
chain of privately owned, specialized marine facili- Murmansk, Salekhard, Yakutsk, Krasnoyarsk. Along-
ties – with exception of maybe ports of Pevek and Tiksi side with objective characteristics of the Arctic logistics
in the eastern sector of the Russian Arctic, whose vol- (pronounced seasonality, infrastructure constraints,
ume of incoming cargoes significantly exceeds that of high material consumption, extensive range of goods
outgoing ones and whose current infrastructure had to be delivered), there exist a number of judgmental fac-
been built back in the Soviet times. tors that come down to poor coordination between nu-
Another reason for this situation is that deliveries merous contractors; poor quality of operational cargo
are managed by ad hoc project teams and interim con- flow planning; lacking coordination and poor interac-
tractors. Guided by the here-and-now approach, they tion among teams even within one company; poor in-
pursue the tasks that are narrow and short-term in na- formation exchange; and, ultimately, poor operational
ture, without giving any attention to how their agendas decision-making.
can contribute to the area’s general development strate- In the Russian Arctic, core ports include not only
gy. With operations being carried on in an unregulated Arkhangelsk, Murmansk and Far Eastern ports, but
fashion – following the poorly coordinated schemes of also inland shipping ports of Kras-
independent logisticians – the onshore and the offshore noyarsk, Lesosibirsk, Yakutsk, Ust-
operations face more complex problems, fueled by the Kut, Sergino, Omsk, and Labytnan- Пример флагманского
lack of the essential services. gi. Each of them has its own share in
Tasked with projects of a more global nature, the the volume of the cargo traffic in the арктического проекта,
regional authorities seem to be the last to learn about Arctic Zone. Distinct from them is успешно реализованного в силу
down-to-earth challenges. As the Arctic areas are revis- Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrug, быстрого реагирования на
ing their territorial development strategies, their trans- where cargo delivery modes involve,
port ministries’ hair-brained schemes to achieve more in some sections, road or rail trans- вызовы внешней и внутренней
cargoes (grain and other cargoes exotic for the Arctic port or combination thereof. логистики – строительство
region) don’t seem to make sense for cost recovery of The major part of Arctic-bound завода СПГ в Сабетте
offshore infrastructure projects. What should be ad- cargo flow is maintained via two
dressed first is, in our mind, spatial planning, i. e. ways main channels – sea and river. In One example of a flagship Arctic
to create and promote smaller-scale gravity points, in- this sense, the marine and river project, which owes its success to
cluding offshore ones, with optimal locations in rela- shipping ports are logistics chains’
tion to the future projects and their surrounding ar- starting points. That said, in the life fast response to challenges of its
eas. Only then can future cargo database take a more cycle of the majority of newly started external and internal logistics, is
realistic shape. projects, the share of these shipping LNG plant in Sabetta
If supported by regional authorities, these gravity ports is bound to change, with in-
points will stand a better chance of being noticed by land water transport giving way to
investors, since they involve less risks associated with marine shipping and becoming neg-
delivery of the inventories and personnel – at optimal ligent as projects enter their operation phase.
prices and in a more systemic manner. As for the off-
shore gravity points, these don’t have to be arranged Subarctic rivers
in deep-water areas. Their depths should be sufficient
enough to accommodate the ships of current Arctic car- Mention should be made of the significant contribu-
go fleet and river-sea traffic. At the same time, it’s essen- tion of river shipping in the Arctic development. Car-
tial that they operate also as logistics services provid- riages by river are indispensable for destinations with
ers, since general cargo handling requires extra people no temporary berths (unequipped shore), as well as dur-
and extra sites for aggregation and storage. Addition- ing the period of permanent berth construction, i. e. the
ally, they would help achieve better territorial cohesion. first three to four years.
Conclusion: In the best case scenario, each particu- The percentage of river traffic along the Ob, Lena,
lar area or basin has a pre-designed supporting infra- and Yenisei in the total volume of cargo transportation
structure accessible to players during the development is more than significant, representing 20% to 50%, de-
and operation phase. In the absence of, and when there pending on project development stage and marine ba-
is no plan for, such local infrastructure, the load will sin. In Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the volume
have to be distributed among core transport hubs – the of cargo delivered to the Arctic coast by rivers equaled
sea and river shipping ports across the Arctic. between 2.5 and 3 million tons per season, which, to-
gether with sea transport, amounts to 30% of the to-
Stress points tal cargo volume delivered to the projects in this area.
Given that nearly all upcoming projects are going to
From the perspective of Arctic logistics experts, the be deployed offshore, the share of the water transport
core of Arctic transport system should be concentrated in Yamal Nenets area will only be increasing – the lo-